“Daylight”

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Via Pitchfork

Flying Lotus associate Stephen Bruner, better known by his alter ego Thundercat, is gradually drip-feeding us songs from his upcoming The Golden Age of Apocalypse. The prior "For Love I Come" highlighted his rubbery bass playing skills, which mine jazz fusion grooves rarely heard outside of old Weather Report albums. FlyLo has a production credit on that forthcoming record, and his influence is a little more apparent here. "Daylight" is constructed around an acidic loop that burrows straight through the center of the track, tracing out a simple template that allows Thundercat to lose himself in a wild keyboard odyssey. The whole song is bathed in a pool of extreme placidity, with everything from the serene vocals to those corkscrewing keyboard runs coming from a place of Zen-like tranquility. At times it's hard to believe "Daylight" isn't some rare ECM-influenced recording plucked from the vaults of a holistic retreat that's been lost in time since the 1970s. But in Thundercat's capable hands that doesn't feel like such a bad place to be, and maybe it's a necessary diversion into calm for him-- especially when you consider that one of his many other gigs is as the bass player for thrash legends Suicidal Tendencies.